


In the Gallowgate End in the Rain

by awkwardsorta



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Frenchmen in England, M/M, Newcastle United, Transfer Angst, settling in
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-25
Updated: 2013-04-25
Packaged: 2017-12-09 12:17:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/774097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awkwardsorta/pseuds/awkwardsorta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two Frenchmen trying to navigate the North-East, never-ending injuries, transfer rumours and each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Gallowgate End in the Rain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heyitsk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyitsk/gifts).



> But with the Ligue 1 leaders aiming to strengthen their squad to mount a serious challenge for the Champions League next season, PSG sporting director Leonardo has admitted that Nasri and Cabaye are both on the club’s radar as potential signings.
> 
> “The landscape in football is changing,” Leonardo told Gazzetta dello Sport. “That is one of the reasons why guys like Hazard and Giroud have left, but I like the idea of luring great French players back.
> 
> "I am not talking about Benzema, but about players such as Nasri, Ribéry and Cabaye.
> 
> “I don't know whether it's realistic, though, as I have not had contact with any of them."
> 
> _The Telegraph, 16 April 2013_  
> 

Yohan is driving them home from training when Hatem brings it up. It’s been simmering for days, people throwing those initials around with abandon like it isn’t a person’s career they’re talking about. It doesn’t mean anything that his isn’t the only name being linked with the Parisian club, doesn’t help that the gossip blogs say Nasri, Bale, Rooney, _Ronaldo_ : in Newcastle, it’s only Yohan.

"So you're leaving,” Hatem says, and that’s just like him. Sit on it for days then out with it. Yohan’s used to Hatem and he doesn’t rise to it. He takes his time negotiating a roundabout, then he glances Hatem's way and answers with a question.

"Am I?"

Hatem swears at him.

Yohan watches the car in front. It is slowing down at odd times, unpredictable, like it doesn't quite know where it's going. He steadies his own speed to give it space.

"It's all rumours," he says. "I didn't get angry at you when the Liverpool rumours-"

"-because I came out and turned them down," Hatem breaks in, and Yohan takes a breath, in and out. The car in front indicates and then changes its mind, and Yohan makes a weak gesture in protest.

"I'm sorry," he says, because he knows that's what Hatem needs, and because he is always the mediator. "I don't - I'm not thinking about it."

Hatem rattles out the list. "A place in France, as much money as you want. Playing with Ibra, Lavezzi, Beckham. Bullshit you haven't thought of it."

Yohan doesn't reply. He concentrates on the road: he passes the car in front and ducks back in in time for the corner. The sun is out for once and in clean air he edges over the limit, compensating for the months of safe driving in freezing conditions. He thinks about driving open-topped cars in France, the warmth of the continent and the open roads around Tourcoing.

It's a half-hour journey from the training ground. Hatem lives a few doors down, and they share lifts most days. In the winter they spoke little of their homes. They acknowledged homesickness in quirks of mouths and shakinng heads, and they never said out loud that they missed France.

But Yohan is happy, and sometimes Hatem is too. They go out in Newcastle and go dancing in dark clubs. Strobe lights show Hatem laughing and Yohan is taken in.

 

 

The first time they found each other in a crowded bar it was the off-season, it was too late for them to be out and Yohan fell sideways into Hatem, not drunk, just off balance. Hatem looked down at him and Yohan expected him to laugh, but he held onto Yohan’s arm and he leaned in to say, “I want to go.”

So they left, and Hatem drove them through the city, navigating crowds of people in scraps of clothing, falling across each other and the road, shouting in a foreign language. He didn’t take Yohan to his hotel, he drove to his house and Yohan’s first invitation into Hatem’s home came in the form of a slammed car door and a look through the windshield.

They fucked on Hatem’s unmade bed, cursing out the sounds of the city, and afterwards Hatem lay on his back with his arm over his eyes but he wouldn’t let Yohan leave.

That was Hatem when Yohan moved to the North-East: angry, unhappy, needy to the point of clinging. The season started, games came and went, no injuries came and no goals either. Yohan got a place near Hatem’s and they built on the cautious friendship of their national side. Hatem frustrated in England like he had frustrated in France, and Yohan couldn’t spend all his time around him, had to leave and go out with Demba or talk to his family or just sit at home and be. And when he was there he would think of Hatem and when he left he would go back to the wrong house and crawl into Hatem’s bed.

Newcastle was unfamiliar: a jarring mix of new and old, of modern tower blocks and neo-classical facades, and in the suburbs, the low terraces, takeaways and laundromats and corner shops with messy windows and pulled-down shutters. Yohan didn’t understand the people, not their unfamiliar English nor their way of delivering it, but he didn’t dislike them.

 

 

“They loved you for that, you know, for saying you’d never go to Liverpool.”

Yohan drives to Hatem’s place and he leads Hatem into his own home. Hatem walks into the bedroom and shuts the door, so Yohan opens it behind him.

“I remember when you didn’t want to stay here,” Yohan says. He sits on the edge of Hatem’s bed and watches him kick around the room, aggressively tidying from the morning, “Look how much it’s changed.”

 

 

The autumn of his first season in Newcastle was settling in, re-learning a language that Yohan had left fallow since high school. It was Hatem and him, away from everyone, sharing laughter and kisses in front of Ligue 1 matches on satellite. Yohan started almost every game. Hatem did too but he dragged behind, goalless and with a growing temper about it, until the Reebok Stadium, a 61st minute substitution and a ball clipped back into the area from Taylor. Hatem knocked it in and ran to the crowd.

Yohan saw him later, collared by Pardew in the dressing room. They stood close together and Hatem was smiling, Pardew cuffing him around the head with affection and pride as he pulled away.

Hatem was still smiling that night, spread out beneath Yohan. smiling into open-mouthed kisses.

“Happy now?” Yohan asked, nudging his legs apart. Hatem laughed, lit up by streetlights through the open curtains, and Yohan was taken in.

With the goals, Hatem changed. Where before his warmth and intensity of character had been focused on Yohan, now he bestowed it on the whole team. He picked up his partnerships on the pitch and carried them off it, going out with other people, going home with other people. He ran the length of the pitch, scattering Bolton players before him, and St James’ Park was deafening.

 

 

“I remember when you didn’t want to stay either,” Hatem says. He disappears into the ensuite and Yohan hears a cupboard door slam. When he comes out again Hatem leans against the doorframe and crosses his arms.

 

 

The year was hard. Yohan played and played, fought against defenders heads taller than him, ran into opposing wingers like running shoulder-first into double-decker buses. Games were cold and wet and unforgiving. There was no respite, no break, they just kept on. Relief only came mid-week when Yohan collapsed in front of his television and watched teams battle in Europe. He fell asleep in front of games and missed all the goals, woke up in the night to reruns of South American football and went to bed.

Hatem was scoring more, around less, and Yohan could match the scoring, but he couldn’t match the easy freedom with which Hatem took off from their friendship.

Summer came and they made the place for Europe, and it meant everything but Yohan was too tired to take it in. The team doctor told him to rest, and Yohan did; he had no trouble getting to sleep after the physical exhaustion of the season, but he told him that he woke up tired still. The doctor checked his diet and Yohan protested at his questioning. He followed his guidelines to the letter and still he woke up tired, still he fell onto his settee at six in the evening, unable to take another step.

He got called up for the Euros, and Hatem did too.

It passed in a blur of travelling and sleeping and mentions of the World Cup disgrace. In Donetsk, Yohan tapped Hatem in in the 84th minute and watched the game peter out from the bench. Five days later he scored and it lifted him enough to carry him to Hatem’s room, where they talked about nothing in particular and fell asleep before anything happened.

France went out in the Quarter-finals, and Yohan went home.

 

 

Yohan doesn’t answer Hatem because the answer is too complicated. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to stay, but he can see how Hatem could think so.

“I was tired,” he says simply, because that seems easier than going into the detail.

Hatem comes to sit by Yohan on the bed. “You disappeared,” he says. “I turned around and you weren’t there anymore.” It sounds accusatory but for the rare caution in Hatem’s voice. Yohan leans forward to get a look at his face.

“Hatem,” he says. Hatem frowns at him. “We-.”

 

 

Mathieu was the next to arrive. He was easy and relaxed, like Hatem in a good mood, and Yohan could make him laugh. He let Mathieu stay until he found his feet, and in the evenings he thought about acting on whatever had been between them at Lille, but he didn’t. They talked about France and their old friends there, and they talked about England and what was to come. After games, they hashed out issues and berated their teammates and each other for things not working.

Hatem came over sometimes, and they got exuberant and forgot which country was outside the door.

Mathieu moved out and into Demba’s old house, just down the road. They still got together, but Mathieu brought his girlfriend over from France and it was quieter.

Hatem still asked for lifts, and when his house was empty again, Yohan started inviting him in.

 

 

“Things got better,” Yohan says, and Hatem shrugs.

“Yeah I know,” he says. “So are you going?”

Yohan doesn’t know what he would do if they came for him and if Newcastle wanted to let him go. He knows PSG have the money to prise him from the club if that is what everyone wanted, but hopes it isn’t. He hopes the club want him to stay. He has grown fond of the cold, of the winter uniform of t-shirts and shorts. The accent is the only one he understands these days. Hatem, moody, mercurial Hatem, has become part of the city himself, has found shared passion and irrationality in Pardew and a reflected frustration from the fans that comes from love and a desire to see him soar. France has seeped into the city and the fans wear red, white and blue, no longer monochrome.

“I don’t know,” Yohan says. “Sometimes people just don’t know, Hatem. Sometimes you just have to give it some time.”

“I always know,” Hatem says.

Yohan puts a hand to Hatem’s cheek. “I don’t want to leave,” he says. “Is that enough?”

He says, “Can you let it be enough right now.”

And, more coaxing, “Hatem.”

 

 

The sounds of the city are part of their life these days, and Hatem’s home doesn’t feel like the wrong one to Yohan. They are together less, but happier more, and Yohan doesn’t think about leaving though he knows he might, he thinks about grey light through windowpanes and lifts to training and learning how to say ‘lad’ like a Geordie. And he knows that Hatem doesn’t think of leaving at all, and won’t until the moment he decides he is, but there are things you just have to give some time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> For [](http://kfunk22.livejournal.com/profile)[**kfunk22**](http://kfunk22.livejournal.com/) who gave me a lovely prompt about these two and then wanted Alan Pardew _as well_ \- the cheek of some people! ♥ I'm laughing as I even type that pairing out but despite the fact I never thought I'd be writing Newcastle fic, I really enjoyed this. Thanks for the ideal prompt, Karo. Here's to the Premier League!
> 
> [](http://the-wild-son.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://the-wild-son.livejournal.com/) **the_wild_son** was kind enough to de-pretentionise this for me ♥
> 
>  
> 
> **Notes and links**
> 
>   
> 
>   1. To the best of my knowledge, all footballing details here are canon: games, goals, injuries and timelines.
>   
> 
>   2. To briefly summarise: Hatem Ben Arfa joined Newcastle in August 2010, fractured his leg in two places that October, tried to come back July 2011, got injured again, came back fully in September 2011. This season he got injured again December 2012 and came back properly April 2013. Tbh that rate of injury will mess up anyone.
>   
> 
>   3. Lifestyle details are fudged or made up to suit my self-indulgent fanfiction whims.
>   
> 
>   4. Videos! [Cabaye and Debuchy look attractive at each other/welcome Debuchy to Newcastle](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xwof86_debuchy-et-le-defi-magpie_sport#.UXgDO7Wsh8E)
>   
> 
>   5. [Ben Arfa talks about Cabaye while wearing an offensively ugly jacket](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xsyiyq_bein-sport-portrait-yohan-cabaye_sport#.UXgETrWsh8E)
>   
> 
>   6. Ben Arfa's goals against Bolton: [the come-back goal](http://www.soccer-blogger.com/2011/12/26/bolton-vs-newcastle-2011-highlights-0-2-video-goals-ben-arfa-demba-ba/) \+ [the wonder-goal](http://www.soccer-blogger.com/2012/04/09/newcastle-vs-bolton-2012-highlights-2-0-ben-arfa-papiss-cisse-goals-video/). Of the second, Alan Pardew, Newcastle's manager, said "It was an individual goal that not many players could score. Not many players have been blessed with the talent that Hatem has."
>   
> 



End file.
